Paul and Lucy Spadoni periodically live in Tuscany to explore Paul’s Italian roots, practice their Italian and enjoy “la dolce vita.”
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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Going inside the marble mountains of Carrara is an unforgettable journey

Tuesday, March 17

It looks like these marble blocks have been
carefully stacked together, but they come this
way naturally.

Everybody who drives or takes the train along the west coast
of Italy has seen them from a distance. Anybody who has read The Agony and the Ecstasy has read about
them. The white marble mountains of Carrara are interesting from afar—many people
mistake the shining white marble for snow—but up close they are truly amazing.
And there is no better way to see them than by going up the steep, unpaved
roads in a 4x4 vehicle to drive right into the quarries, indeed right inside
the mountains themselves.

Lucy and I, along with friends Steve and Patti, have booked
an excursion with Cave di Marmo Tours, which takes us on a three-hour excursion
into the heart of the land where Michelangelo came to select the marble slabs
he used to create his masterful sculptures. The mountains above Carrara are basically
one huge block of crystallized calcium carbonate, which originated during the
Jurassic era. Marble is created when limestone crystallizes under extreme
pressure and heat. Limestone itself is formed from layer upon layer of sea shells. Tectonic
action first buries the limestone, squeezing it until it crystallizes before
thrusting it upward to form mountains.

This photo is taken from one of the higher quarries. You can just make out the Mediterranean Sea, top left.

Our German-Italian guide Heike fearlessly drives us up
rugged, rain-rutted service roads overlooking the marble quarries, the city of
Carrara and numerous small islands in the Mediterranean. The ride reminds us of
Disneyland, with the added thrill of knowing that we are not on a secure track
and that the scenery was originally created by the hand of God rather than man.
As we bounce and skid first up and then down the steep slopes, Lucy tries to
close her eyes and think about something else, but Heike keeps pointing out
sights to see and takes pleasure in the knowledge that her tour is thrilling on
a variety of levels.

These work better than the oxen that workers once used.

We learn that the Romans discovered marble here in 176 BC,
which meant they no longer had to import it from other countries. They built a
port at Luni and roads into the mountains. Then they faced the puzzle of where to find strong workers
willing to wield mallets and chisels and endure extreme weather conditions while
working year-around in dusty quarries? No problem. They were rulers of most of
Europe, so they just took some hearty northern Europeans as slaves and put them
to work in the quarries. Heike says you can still see many light-haired,
blue-eyed Italians in Carrara who are descendants of these early quarrymen.

The first blocks were taken from the mountains to the sea by slave
power alone. Later came oxen, then trains. Now huge front-end loaders and dump
trucks are used. All of the methods made use of wheels, and the city’s motto is
“My strength is in the wheel.”

The motor side of the chain saw. This is inside one of the caves.

Harvesting techniques have also changed. Marble contains
natural pressure fractures, and early workers used chisels and wooden wedges to
widen the fractures and break off slabs. Later, explosives were used, but this
had to be carefully done to avoid fracturing the slabs. Hand saws have also
been employed.

This worker is setting the diamond-tipped chain to make
this irregular side straight. The motor is out of the
picture to the left.

Current techniques use drills and a type of chain saw incorporating
industrial diamonds fastened to a flexible cable. Holes are drilled in the marble and the chain inserted in one end and
pulled out the other. Then the cable is looped around a pulley powered by an electric motor and run
for hours at a time until a clean cut is made. All the while, water is running
in the hole to cool the chain and minimize the dust.

We were just about to go in this cave, but we had to back
out when our driver saw this loader coming out.

Much of the work is now done inside the mountains so as not
to disturb the terrain, and we are able to go inside to observe the process up
close. It is difficult to describe the scene in words, and photos don’t do it
justice as well. The walls and ceiling are flat, though not uniformly so, as
some support pillars remain. It reminds me of being inside a large cathedral,
but instead of being built by adding marble slabs, it is what remains after
removing slabs from the center. Moisture drips from the ceiling, and the floor
is covered with a quarter inch of wet marble powder. The workers spend most of
their time monitoring and repositioning the saws. It is dark, damp and dirty
work, but I’m sure it would be a dream job for the first slaves forced to do everything
by human strength alone.

This is taken just after we went inside.

The 188 quarries are all privately owned by very wealthy families,
Heike says. The country should be earning more income from this lucrative
business, but the quarry owners still benefit from an ancient agreement they
reached with the duchy of Modena. They agreed to provide Modena with the
choicest marble, and the duchy agreed not to tax them. I’m not sure how this
agreement survived to the modern age, but Heike suggests it has much to do with
money, politics and corruption, which Italy has long been famous for, so we are
inclined to believe her.

Toward the end of the tour, we travel through an old railway
tunnel, and I have read that this tunnel is 400 meters long, 400 meters above
sea level and has 400 meters of stone above it.

We rarely pay for tours in Italy, but much of what we
experience today would be impossible to do on our own. All in all, this is my
kind of tour, as I relate more to the manual laborers and engineers of Italy
than to the artists—even while recognizing that the great artists were also engineers,
architects and laborers. For me, the 35 euro per person cost is worth the
price.

If only they had hidden the key in the cab, I would have given our tour group a ride to remember
in the bucket of this loader.

3 comments:

Here is a weird one for you. When my husband and I went to Italy we went to the marble caves because my great grandfather (or maybe he was my great uncle. It's a crazy story.) worked there around 1890 (give or take a decade.) This is the father (or maybe uncle) of Anita Antongiovanni who married Guido Spadoni.

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About Me

First off, before you hassle me about our title, Lucy thought of it. Yes, I know some people may think broad is derogatory, but the etymology is uncertain and she doesn’t find it offensive, and it made me laugh. We have been married since 1974 and are empty-nesters now, which allows me to bring my submerged Italophilia into the open. We first came to live in Italy from February-April in 2011 and have returned during the same months every year. From 2011-2015, we lived in San Salvatore, at the foot of the hilltop city Montecarlo, where my paternal grandparents were born, raised and, in 1908, married. In late 2015, we bought a home in Montecarlo. We come for a variety of purposes: We want to re-establish contact with distant cousins in both Nonno’s and Nonna’s families, we want to learn the language and see what it is like to live as Italians in modern Italy, we like to travel and experience different cultures. Even if we aren’t successful at achieving these purposes, we love Italy and enjoy every moment here, so there is no chance we will be disappointed. I am grateful to God for giving me a wife who is beautiful, clever, adaptable and willing to jump into my dreams wholeheartedly.